


I Think We’re Alone Now

by Floatyflamingo



Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Heavy Angst, I bend the rules a little so it’s slightly not canon compliant, I just plan on including songs that aren’t in-game basically, I’m trying to stick to the timeline as best as possible, Loss, Loss of Parent(s), Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pre-Relationship, Romance, They're both fucking awkward, Unrequited Love, takes place over time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:41:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25500808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Floatyflamingo/pseuds/Floatyflamingo
Summary: Delilah’s father had always told her of the origin of her name. He was an extraordinarily faith driven man, to a point where his own daughter questioned the extent of it at multiple points in her life. In this instance however, she couldn’t help but find the irony of her namesake as she dashed down the vault hallways, a severed lock of dark hair clutched between her fingertips.
Relationships: Butch DeLoria & Female Lone Wanderer, Butch DeLoria/Female Lone Wanderer
Comments: 9
Kudos: 37





	I Think We’re Alone Now

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic! I hope you all like it! My god damn computer broke, so I’m having to post on IOS. Bear with any formatting errors.

Delilah’s father had always told her of the origin of her name. He was an extraordinarily faith driven man, to a point where his own daughter questioned the extent of it at multiple points in her life. In this instance however, she couldn’t help but find the irony of her namesake as she dashed down the vault hallways, a severed lock of dark hair clutched between her fingertips. Her victim followed in tow, and was quickly gaining on her, much to her own dismay.

He had just started slicking his hair back into that stupid pompadour around a year ago, and it had finally achieved the perfect length to actually properly style. Something about the way it framed his face (and the way he was just a dick) irked the girl. She daydreamed many times throughout the week of grabbing a pair of scissors, and snipping a chunk off the top. There was no reason for her to do it when she did, he hadn’t so much as looked her way the whole day. But He did destroy her art project a week prior, maybe that would be a good enough excuse.

Butch had fallen asleep in class that day, Brotch dismissed them, her bully was dead to the world and didn’t hear the departure notice, she just told their teacher she wanted to stay back and study awhile. She made her move the moment their teacher had agreed and left for the diner. 

_Yeah._ She had thought the moment his eyes snapped open to see the scissors in her right hand, and his hair clutched between the white knuckles of her left. She hadn’t gotten the top like she wanted to, but the side would have to do. _I’ll pin it on the art project._

Within seconds he had leapt from his seat to attack, but Delilah jumped up at the same time and had bounded past the door before he could berate her with names. Or his fists.

“You fuckin’ bitch!” Butch practically screeched behind her. Delilah couldn’t help but choke out a laugh between her heavy breaths. It had been quite a while since she’d heard his voice that high. It went through an awkward phase for a while, and would crack anytime he spoke. All of the boys suffered the same affliction; the only time she, Amata, Susie and Christine got along as a group was to make fun of them for it. A few years passed and his voice was much steadier, nor did it crack. With that, her camaraderie with Susie and Christine finally flicked out of existence.

It wasn’t the only thing that had changed, they had certainly shot up past the girls in height. In terms of athletic ability, there was no competition anymore. The fact wasn’t lost on her either; once upon a time she could’ve outrun Butch no problem, now she was struggling to stay ahead.  
Two pairs of footsteps joined their tandem further back, much to her dismay.

 _“Shit,”_ Delilah cursed beneath her breath. _Didn’t think Paul and Wally were gonna give a shit too._

It was quite foolish of her to assume so, the whole group acted as a hive mind, and blindly followed their leader without any second thoughts. Butch alone was no problem to deal with, Paul wasn’t much of a threat either, but Wally had become the most vindictive over the past couple of months. Hell, he was the only one to have actually popped her in the face.

She had briefly cracked a joke about his forehead being too large once; both Paul and Butch found some amusement from that, the two actually laughed at it. Unfortunately for her, that didn’t set too well with Wally, and he retaliated out of embarrassment. Though she wasn’t sure that record was going to last too much longer, _she had just cut Butch’s hair._

Her father’s words rang through her ears as she reminisced her days of bedtime bible stories. Something about a man named Samson confiding in his lover his source of power, which happened to be his hair. Butch of course was no lover of Delilah, but the rest of the statement held true. Not even Susie cared about her hair as much as Butch did, and she was the most vain of the girls in her age group.

She wasn’t entirely certain how the rest of the tale faired, but she was pretty sure the woman ordered a servant to cut Samson’s hair. Delilah snickered at the thought, but she didn’t need a servant, nor did she have one at her disposal anyway. 

She hardly noticed his thunderous footsteps gaining on her while her mind replayed the day’s events. At least not until he reached out and snagged her by the back collar of her vault suit. He swung her back so effortlessly she was almost impressed, until she collided with the unforgiving floor. Her tailbone collided with the solid steel so hard she thought she felt her vertebrae chatter up her back, if she had listened closely she might’ve been able to make a sentence out of it. Her jaw slammed shut on her tongue on the rebound, and she really couldn’t mask her wince in that moment. It was bleeding, she could taste that for sure, but the damage wasn’t as bad as she assumed it would be. She turned her head and spit red across the floor.

“Butch-“ before she could finish her sentence he pinned her to the floor. Despite how icy blue his eyes were, his glare practically burned holes into her eye sockets. Part of her felt she needed to look away to avoid the intensity of his stare, the stubborn half of her wouldn’t let her eyes fall away, not even to spit the blood pooling in her mouth. He was fuming. His ragged breaths grazed her face; Lilah gritted her teeth with hot indignation.

“ _Get off._ You’re _hurting_ me.” As stoic as she tried to sound, her voice was trembling. Her whole body was now that she was focused on it. He was starting to scare her, but god be damned if she was going to lead him to that conclusion. She tried to tense every muscle in her body to stop trembling. It seemed to just make it worse. The other two boys had finally caught up, their boots screeched to a halt near the side of her head. Their arrival only made her more anxious.

“I know it hurts, that’s the _point_ , _poin_ dexter.” Butch’s voice carried down the hallway.

She broke eye contact with Butch long enough to glare in the rest of the gang’s (if you could even refer to them as such) direction. Anything to relieve her of his attention for a brief moment was a good excuse.

“What’d you think was going to happen? He was just gonna let you off the hook?” Wally let out a whopping belly laugh, and _Christ_ it annoyed her. Not even Butch could piss her off that bad with only a sound.  
Though it was a good question. What _did_ she think was going to happen? A reality in which Butch wouldn’t have gotten pissed didn’t exist. Not to mention she was headed away from both the clinic and her father’s apartment, where was she going to go? The secret storage room near the reactor her father and Jonas had set up for her shooting practice? She couldn’t think a more horrendous idea than to introduce Butch to guns, and the _last_ person in the vault she would want to know about the room itself was him. Not only would her “sanctum” be desecrated, his loud mouth would lead to everyone else in their class finding out about it. That, and he would probably take Susie down there to get jiggy, and the thought alone was enough to stave Delilah off from wanting to go at all for the sake of making sure no one found it.

“I didn’t think he was going to wake up, _Wally_. To be entirely fair, he snores like a fucking freight train.” Blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth as she spoke. She unsuccessfully tried to wipe it on her shoulder to look back up at her assailant. Part of her so badly wanted to spit in his face, but that was going to open an entirely new can of worms that she wouldn’t be able to deal with.

Delilah leveled Butch’s stare once more. A harsh gleam lit up his eyes, but it was far too menacing, far too directed at her. His legs tightened around her hips to be sure she didn’t move, and his fingers were so tight on her shoulders she was sure they would bruise. She felt like she was stuck in an iron trap; the boy really had gotten stronger over the years. There truly was no chance of her overpowering him at this rate, especially not when two of the three stooges were waiting on standby. A fluorescent lighting panel illuminated the space behind his head. If he weren’t about to deliver her to the shining gates themselves—and if she didn’t know he was a raging asshole—she would’ve thought he was an angel.

“The hell is wrong with you?” His grip tightened on her, eliciting a whimper from her bloodied lips. “What’d I do to deserve that one? I haven’t even fuckin’ looked at you in weeks!” _Definitely_ not an angel. Based off of her father’s knowledge she wasn’t sure angels cursed as much as Butch did.

“A week,” Delilah retorted. She tried to steel herself despite the blood falling from the side of her mouth. Her lips set into a firm line to try and stop the flow. “You destroyed my art project _not even_ a week ago.” At that she had to look away from him for a moment. It hadn’t even upset her that bad, she hadn’t even liked what she did for the project, and contemplated throwing it away herself. Butch had just done the work for her after calling it ugly, which she truly couldn’t deny.

“S’not my fault you’re a shitty artist, pipsqueak. You should just give it up.” The insult tumbled from his lips like nothing. His goons garbled a few laughs above them. That stupid, shit eating grin tugged at his lips thanks to their encouragement. He didn’t even have to try to find her insecurities, it was almost like he had some sort of awful telepathy and could just yank them out of her head at will. All he had to do was dig a little.

_And boy did it fucking sting._

She felt her face heat up with embarrassment. Delilah shrunk back. Suddenly the space between them seemed to close in on her, not literally of course. Butch would never get closer than an inch away from her face, to even get that close he had to be ready to throw a few punches. All she knew was her face was flushed entirely, and he derived far too much enjoyment from her sudden reclusion. Most of her work she doubted fully, even if she slaved over it for hours. All of it was shit to her, but it hurt so much more to hear it from someone else.

Adrenaline coursed through her veins as she tried to think of something, _anything_ to come back with. Her brain flipped through insults like stations on a transistor radio. Usually she was witty, but there were points with Butch where he caught her so far from her guard she struggled to keep her composure. She chewed her lip as she tried to think, and boy he seemed proud to have stumped her for once.

“Cat gotcha’ tongue?” Butch was far too thrilled suddenly, like he forgot the reason he had her pinned to the floor. Far too confident for a boy who’s hair was an entirely different length on one side. She so badly wanted to knock him down a few pegs. Usually she would throw a low blow about his mother being an alcoholic, but the joke was getting old. Perhaps it was time to try a new approach. Her eyes glistened, the corners of her lips twitched upward before quickly correcting herself. He caught it. His smile faltered, brow twitched. That was her telltale sign she had struck a nerve, it was far from their first tango, and they both had memorized each other’s moves. He knew she had stormed something up, it was a mannerism of hers he was all too familiar with.

Delilah let out a mock sigh. “You know, it’s a real shame I did that, actually. The whole greaser thing was starting to grow on me.” A sheepish, red smile hovered across her lips. She let the grin stay this once.

She leaned up into him so their faces were only inches apart, he instinctively leaned further away. There was only so far he could go without losing his grip on her, so she pushed it until their noses were practically touching in hopes of something leverage. His smug expression fell, eyes as wide as the flying saucers she had read about in old pre war comic books. For a brief moment she could’ve sworn a blush had fanned across his cheeks. The tinge of pink was so faint she almost convinced herself she was just hallucinating. She quirked her brow at him, and in an attempt to maintain her flirty facade she batted her eyelashes. He noticed, and immediately the his cheeks grew hotter. His change of attitude gave her whiplash, she felt extremely dizzy. Maybe she was losing a large amount of blood, had she really bitten her tongue that hard? 

“Too bad you’re such an ass, I actually thought you were starting to look kind of _cute_.”

His breath stalled, and his grip went slack. He was no longer latched onto her like a bear trap, if anything he felt like a limp corpse sitting atop her. If she had known one sentence was enough to practically kill him she would’ve started it up sooner, and it definitely would’ve saved her from a few bruises. Then again, she really didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.

All three boys were silent as death, Butch especially. His expression hadn’t relaxed at all; his jaw was slack, and if he weren’t so stubborn it might have detached entirely and fallen to the floor. Those blue eyes of his only widened further. She wasn’t entirely sure how it was possible they hadn’t popped out of his skull yet. 

“I... I-“ His eyes flitted across her face as he tried to drum up any sort of comeback. He swallowed hard. Hard enough she dropped her head back to study his face with a puzzled frown. Her act shattered entirely. Did he _stutter_? Was he flustered over the idea of Delilah “Nosebleed” Thatcher, thinking he was _cute_? She momentarily tore her eyes from him, and turned her head to stare at the wall. The idea in itself was ridiculous, but she couldn’t help the dreadful tickle in her gut when she thought about it. Her ears were red hot. Maybe she had the wrong idea.

“Cat got _your_ tongue?” She mocked him, thought her voice lacked any form of contempt she had originally brought to the table. If anything she sounded breathless. She had hardly spoken above a whisper, so silently she wasn’t sure he had even heard her. Her heart was racing for an entirely different reason now, unable to look him in the eye. She wasn’t scared anymore, more dumbfounded than anything. Butch wouldn’t look at her either, the pulse point in his neck was throbbing so hard it almost looked like it would burst. She couldn’t decipher whether or not the pounding in her ears was her own heartbeat or his.

It was now all too noticeable the precarious position they were sat in. His hold on her was far less tight, and if she were truly thinking it would’ve been all too easy to squirm out of his grip. Her brain had short circuited. 

Fight, flight, freeze as her father would’ve said, and it seemed she had picked option three. She just stared blankly to her right, and he to the left. Every few seconds she would sneak a glance his way, he was still flushed red, the choppy clumps of hair at the side of his head stuck straight out. Now she just felt like shit for even thinking of lobbing his hair off. If she hadn’t she wouldn’t be sitting beneath his embarrassed ass, and her mind wouldn’t be running in circles trying to read his thoughts.

She spit another glob of saliva and blood to the floor unceremoniously.

“Butch-“ He seemed to flinch at her voice, and met her eyes for half a second. “I’ll give you some vouchers to get your hair fixed, just-“ Delilah shifted underneath him. Her butt was starting to hurt from being shoved to the ground, and his added weight wasn’t doing her any favors. “-get your fat ass off of me.”

He seemed to snap out of his thoughts the moment the words left her bloody lips, and he leapt off her so fast she would’ve thought she put a knife to his throat. Rather than stand beside his gang as usual, he stepped a few feet away from the group. His hands immediately found the solace of his pockets.

She spat once more, wiped the mess with her sleeve, and pushed herself to her feet. All three of them were staring at her, Paul and Wally were both wide eyed and pale. They were locked onto her like she had just revealed she was the antichrist, or blew the whole world to smithereens all those years ago. Butch’s expression has dulled considerably, but was unreadable for once. Delilah deflated with a sigh, and ran a hand through her hair.

Wordlessly, she headed back from the direction she came. Her shoulders were sloped downward into a slouch. On any other day she would’ve forced herself to stand up straight, but she was suddenly exhausted. The weight of their stares were heavy on her back. She paused to look back at them over her shoulder. Her gaze settled on their “leader.”

“Do you want your vouchers or not, DeLoria?” For once she didn’t sound exhausted to address him. She was almost nonchalant, like she was asking Amata if she wanted to switch lunches. His strange expression didn’t change, he just turned her way and followed.

Paul and Wally exchanged uneasy glances, silently consulting with each other on whether they should follow. She didn’t stick around to learn of their decision, Butch didn’t seem to either. Based off the lack of footsteps behind them she assumed they stayed put, or went their separate ways. For that, she was extremely thankful, the last thing she needed was more Wally time.

Her rubber soled boots scuffed rhythmically across the floor, his own identical ones matching her pace. He was far more pleasant than he usually was around her, and quite frankly it made her fucking uncomfortable. Not once had he insulted her for even passing judgement on his looks. Surely he would’ve at least called her ugly or made a comment about her “flat ass”. 

They turned a corner and walked along a stretch past the diner. Delilah stopped in front of the window and stuck her tongue out to see how bad her wounds were. The bleeding had pretty much stopped; distinct, tooth shaped incisions ran in a straight line across the top of it. Butch had walked a few feet before realizing she wasn’t beside him, and turned to watch her examine the damage.

“Sorry.”

She jumped at the sound of his voice, an unwelcome warmth pricked across the bridge of her nose. His apology didn’t sound forced or meaningless for once. It was amazing how genuine he could be if he wasn’t accompanied by his friends or forced by an adult to apologize. Then again, she was sure there were times where his apologies truly were empty, she sure could think of a few empty ones of her own. She promptly retracted her tongue back into her mouth, and turned to him. 

“It’s okay. Kinda deserved it.” In an attempt to ease the tension, she forced a laugh. It didn’t seem to work.

_God this was so fucking uncomfortable._

“Yeah. You kinda did. You’re lucky I didn’t make that nickname a reality, nosebleed.” He agreed far too easily. She snorted, but the trace of a smile on his face wasn’t lost on her.

“Yeah, Yeah.” She waved a hand at him in dismissal in an attempt to play it cool, but she really had stretched past her comfort zone. His eyes were glued to the corner of her mouth, and suddenly she was somehow more uncomfortable. “Do I have something on my face?”

“Blood.”

“Oh,” she swiped the corner of her mouth with her sleeve, and wiped it on her pant leg. “Thanks.” Delilah offered a rather awkward smile. They stared at each other for a few breaths. She’d never seen the scenario for reference, but she felt the looks on their faces were similar to that of a deer in headlights. In a half hearted attempt to break the tension, or at least break eye contact, she continued walking back to her and her father’s apartment unit. He followed in suit.

“Ain’t your pa’ gonna’ be mad at you?” Butch looked at her out of the corner of his eye. She caught it out of her peripheral. He was talking to her much more than usual, much more _amicably_ than usual. It almost appeared he was trying to keep up a conversation.

“He’s probably not home. He’s always at the clinic. So if you don’t tell him, I sure as shit am not going to.” She shrugged, shoving her hands into her pockets. Part of her always wondered what he was doing in the clinic so often. He rarely actually had any patients, other than Ellen if she had a particularly bad hangover. She instead wrote it off as important doctor things, and moved on. 

That was one of the only things she and Butch both had in common, absent parents in one form or another. It was the only thing she could empathize with him about, and the only reason her dislike for him wasn’t a full fledged hate. He was the only one in the vault who knew what it was like to be in a single parent home, and the one parent they each had were tied up in other affairs. Whether their affairs were important or not.

“How are you going to get your hair cut?” Her question elicited an almost immediate snort from him. She couldn’t help but laugh. As insensitive as it felt to laugh at him, he didn’t seem to be as pissed anymore, much to her relief.

“Dunno, but if I have to get a fuckin’ buzz I will throttle you.” Butch’s statement lacked the usual bite his threats always held, he actually sounded like he might’ve been cracking a joke. She looked at him squarely. 

“Well if you have to get a buzz I’ll get one to match. Fair?” She asked, albeit rhetorically. There was no way in hell she was going to shave her head. The corner of his lip twitched into that stupid smirk she usually wanted to slap off his face.

“Fair.”

They paused in front of the apartment door long enough for her to key in the code, and press the button. Butch made sure to politely look away as she did, thankfully even he had some boundaries. The door slid open with a satisfying _whoosh_ ,and she led him in. 

As she predicted, her father wasn’t in. The boy beside her stopped and took in his surroundings. The moment took her aback, but she had almost forgotten he had never been into her apartment before. It was clinically clean, the fluorescent lighting made the shiny steel surfaces almost painful to look at directly. If Delilah hadn’t left her cereal bowl from the morning on the dining table it almost would’ve looked abandoned; Minus the absence of dust of course.

She motioned for him to follow her, and moved to open her bedroom door.

“Uh, you don’t want me to just wait out here?” He questioned, an uneasy look on his face. “What if your dad comes back, that... wouldn’t look great.” 

She fixed a plain look on him. “He’s not going to, and to be honest I don’t know where I put the vouchers I’ve been saving up. It might take me a while.” She stood in her doorway, her head tilted quizzically at him. Since when was Butch DeLoria uneasy about walking into girls’ rooms? She folded her arms across her chest and waited. He twisted his mouth up for a moment, and held her stare. Finally he seemed to relent, and followed her in.  
_____

A record player perched on her dresser was spinning endlessly. It hummed a delicate crackle, stuck on an empty track. She seemed to take notice and walked over to it. The sound stopped as she picked up the stylus, and dropped it on the beginning of the track. The familiar crackle resumed, but was quickly followed by the drone of a plucky guitar.  
He recognized the song immediately, it was one his mother played quite often. Never had he heard it clearly before, it was always a quiet hum through the walls of her room. A woman’s voice filtered through the speaker.

_I was five and he was six  
We rode on horses made of sticks_

Delilah opened a drawer at her desk and began searching for the misplaced vouchers. Her room was the entire opposite of her father’s idea of interior decorating. He stood quietly in the doorway and examined his surroundings as Nancy Sinatra mused in the background.

_He wore black and I wore white  
He would always win the fight  
Bang bang_

Prewar posters and her own drawings littered her walls to an almost nauseating extent. Somehow she had managed to disable the vault lighting panel in her room, it was only lit dimly with a few lamps, and a string of multicolored Christmas lights strung across the edges of her ceiling. Random knick knacks were strewn across her desk and the shelves of her open locker. It clearly wasn’t used for any realistic storage purposes as a locker should, exempting the cardboard box full of junk sitting at the bottom. Her bed seemed to be the only orderly part of her room, a vault tech mandated comforter was tucked neatly into the bed frame, her pillows fluffed almost flawlessly. On her bedside table sat a few empty Nuka cola bottles, and a picture frame with some random woman centered in it. Probably her mom. A dull ache settled in Butch’s throat.

_he shot me down  
Bang bang, I hit the ground  
Bang bang, that awful sound  
Bang bang, my baby shot me down_

He turned his attention to the mousy girl cursing silently to herself as she rummaged through the disorganized drawers of her desk. Based off the amount of rummaging she was doing he guessed she had even more shit.

_Seasons came and changed the time  
When I grew up, I called him mine_

He tried his best to ignore the lyrics, and he was honestly wondering if she was just playing the track to mess with him.

“Where’d you get all of this?” Even if he wanted to get more decorations for his room he wasn’t sure where to look other than the commissary, and they sure as shit didn’t have what she had managed to accumulate.

She paused her frantic search, visibly stiffening. “I... found it?” She offered, but it sounded more like a question in itself. There was no doubt in his mind she was hiding something from him.

“Uh huh. You _found_ it.” He dug a little further, but based off the glare she threw his way he figured it would be best to drop it in the current moment. She was going out of her way to give him vouchers she had been saving, when usually she would’ve taken a hit and moved on. If there was a god, only he and Butch knew how pissed his mother would be over wasted vouchers. _Why get a haircut when you can just get a bottle of vodka and forget the mishap even happened?_

He pushed the discontented thought from his head. Butch loved his mom, it was just hard to sometimes. _Very_ hard sometimes. He decided to change the subject.

_He would always laugh and say  
"Remember when we used to play?"  
Bang bang_

“What were you saving up for anyway, nosebleed?” He plopped made his way into her room, and plopped down on her bed. His hands were still deep in his pockets. She had resumed her search, now crouched over the lowest drawer to the floor. The warm light casted a soft glow across the long brown hair draped down her back. He caught himself looking, and forced his attention to the vault boy bobble heads in her locker.

“There’s a colored pencil and painting set in the commissary I’ve been eyeing.” Delilah paused once more, but she hadn’t faltered quite as long as the last time. Her shoulders dropped. “It’s stupid, I know.”

Something about how disheartened she sounded made his heart twinge. He pulled a hand from his pocket to rub the back of his neck. If he hadn’t made that stupid comment in the heat of the moment she probably wouldn’t have sounded so embarrassed to admit she wanted a buy something as basic as art supplies. Truthfully she wasn’t a bad artist, he didn’t even know why he destroyed her project, he hadn’t even thought about the quality of the piece in the moment. He just wanted to push her buttons during their tiff, throw insults back and forth as they usually did , and apparently he had cut a little to deep.

_Music played and people sang  
Just for me the church bells rang_

He caught himself in his train of thought. He’d been thinking so hard he’d missed the next chorus in the song. Why was he worried about how she felt? Sure, he’d had a crush on Delilah when they were kids. His spiteful bullying definitely started out because he just didn’t know how to handle his feelings. Butch was self aware enough to pinpoint that, but he was sure he’d grown out of that over the years. Well he was, until she practically flirted with him just ten minutes ago. While she was pinned beneath him- 

“Found it!” She exclaimed, a rather dilapidated box perched in her hands. He perked up, attention now on her. “Er... do you know how much a haircut costs?”

Butch met her eyes. “I think it’s two. Two vouchers.” 

The bed dipped beside him as she sat. He glanced into her little bank. She only had five; if he weren’t mistaken he was pretty sure the supplies she wanted were worth eight total. That sucked. Three away from her goal, and now she was knocked back down to three total. 

He looked at his boots and tried hard not to notice how pleasant she smelled. He’d noticed when he was all pressed up against her too, but he was too focused on the loss of his hair to really take it in. She smelled of soap, and something lightly floral. Perfume. She didn’t seem to bathe herself in it like Susie did. Being around her could give him a headache at times, but Delilah smelled nice.

His forehead creased with the hints of a frown. Why the fuck was he comparing her to Susie? And why on earth was he preferring nosebleed of all people?  
He watched her thumb through her box, and pull out two vouchers. She stared blankly at them for a moment before extending her hand to him reluctantly.

“Here.” She forced a smile. He noticed the way her eyes didn’t light up the way they usually did, and tried not to feel too bad when he took them from her. Internally he kicked himself, he could just take the bullet and ask his mom. Then again, he could also not do that. 

“Thanks.” He stood up like someone lit a fire under his ass, and he wasn’t sure if it was because he felt like an intruder, or he wanted to escape his garbled thoughts. It almost felt like he was stumbling over himself to get out of her room. He only took a moment to pause in her doorway, and look back at her.

“Just ‘cuz I didn’t beat you to a pulp, and you helped me, doesn’t make us friends, pipsqueak. Capisce?” His heart rate skyrocketed, for a moment. Or maybe longer than a moment.

_Bang bang, my baby shot me down._

“Capisce.” She winked at him, and that was enough to send him turning on his heel to exit stage left before she could catch him blushing again. 

Butch trudged to the salon, vouchers in hand. He couldn’t lift his eyes away from them. They were just a reminder of how embarrassing that whole situation was. What the hell was he going to tell Wally and Paul? 

_Oh, no, I wasn’t blushing. She had just spit blood on my face._

He totally clammed up, and they noticed. Hell, _Delilah_ noticed. It would be bad enough if she thought he was sweet on her, but if Wally mentioned to Susie he looked at the pipsqueak in any way other than contempt he was dead.  
Butch ran a hand through his hair. His fingers paused on the severed strands above his ear.

“What a fuckin’ mess.” He groaned.

___

Delilah sat in her room silently for a while, not a single thought running through her head until she heard the door of her father’s unit close, and she knew Butch had left for sure. The song had finally ended, and the instrumentals were finally starting to draw to a close.

“What the hell just happened?” Surely the boy who had bullied her to the point of tears for the majority of her life wasn’t mean to her because _he liked her_. How absolutely dreadful would that be? She flopped back on her bed, staring listlessly at her ceiling. It always irked her when the adults said that, it just didn’t make sense. Why would he go out of his way to make her life a living hell if he was hung up on a stupid crush? She rubbed her face with her hands.

It was stupid of her to ponder on it. He was going steady with Susie, and she was leaps and bounds ahead of Delilah in the looks department. Besides, he’d even clarified before he left, they weren’t friends, just settling a debt. 

She’d be a liar to admit it didn’t make her heart flutter slightly that they hadn’t come to blows this time. Then again, she lied all the time, so what was this another to add to her list.

Still, she couldn’t get the image of him blushing out of her mind, not even when she closed her eyes. One thing was for sure, Amata was not going to be in on this one. She wouldn’t let Delilah live it down if she knew, and _god_ sometimes she couldn’t keep her mouth shut. If Susie found out, she might as well walk herself right out of the vault and slap a big red target on her back. This was between her, the three snakes, and whatever the hell they decided to do with the information. She sure as hell wasn’t going to throw herself under the bus.

“What a fucking mess.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading 💕❤️✨  
> Edit: I just realized it’s not letting me list an undetermined number of chapters until I post chapter two. This isn’t the end, I’ll have chapter two up soon!


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